Hair conditioner compositions which provide conditioning to the hair are well known in the art. The purpose of the conditioning agent is to make the hair easier to comb when wet and more manageable when dry, e.g. less frizzy, less friction in dry, and less static “fly-away”. Conditioners also make the hair feel softer. Typically, these conditioning agents are either water-insoluble oily materials such as silicones which act by spreading on the hair in the form of a film, or cationic surfactant materials or polymers, which adsorb onto the hair surface.
The cationic conditioning materials for hair and skin are frequently based on the affinity of quaternized nitrogen for keratinous substrates. This affinity results from an electrostatic interaction between positively charged alkyl nitrogen quaternary compounds and the negative sites on hair or skin surfaces. This electrostatic interaction helps to retain the cationic conditioner on the hair or skin surface and resist wash off. However, the presence of cationic conditioners often causes formulation difficulties in particular with anionic detersive surfactants which are frequently present in such products as shampoos and shower gels.
Additionally, as cationic conditioning agents are substantive to skin and hair via electrostatic attraction, these cationic compounds may actually interfere with the deposition of emollients and hydrophobic benefit agents onto keratinous substrates. Accordingly, there is a need for conditioning agents which are substantive to hair and skin but do not carry a positive charge. Furthermore, there is a need for conditioning agents whose conditioning effects can be controlled during application and rinsing to provide effects that vary from very light to heavy as needed and have the capacity to deliver hydrophobic ingredients to keratin surfaces from rinse-off or leave-on applications.
Polyoxyalkylene substituted alkylene diamines are known surfactants for use in hair compositions. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,611,698, 7,459,417, 5,648,323, 5,709,847, 5,641,480, 5,733,536 and its International Application No., WO03/106522 teach the use of polyoxyalkylene substituted alkylene diamines not as conditioning agents but rather as nonionic surfactants that aid in the solubilization, co-solubilization, and stabilization of hair or skin formulations.
In the patents or applications referred to above, the polyoxyalkylene substituted alkylene diamines are taught to be used as non-ionic surfactants only. There is no recognition by the prior art that a very particular class of polyoxylakylene substituted alkylene diamines might be useful in themselves as conditioning agents or that the polyoxyalkylene substituted alkylene diamines could be made substantive to hair or skin via a phase inversion mechanism. Additionally, there was no recognition that certain polyoxyalkylene substituted alkylene diamines would further be capable of depositing hydrophobic actives or emollients onto skin and hair or reducing the drying time of hair.